Success story
Parishioner Ed Socolovitch is working on a book detailing how community saved a church
By MIKE FORNES
Tribune Staff Writer
CHEBOYGAN - It’s a story good enough to interest a publisher, and Hollywood may even make a motion picture about it someday.
Ed Socolovitch is writing a book, with the help of Detroit author Bill Berryman, about the 1992 attempt to close Sacred Heart Catholic Church and the subsequent resurgence which gave it new life.
The success of the church on Polish Line Road in Riggsville is quite a turnaround today from the early 1990s, when the Diocese of Gaylord began closing smaller Catholic parishes because of a shortage of priests.
St. Charles Parish in Cheboygan closed during the consolidation efforts of a dozen years ago, as did St. Francis in Alverno.
The Diocese is currently considering the same fate in Pellston, Larks Lake, Cross Village and other communities where there just aren’t enough priests to say Mass.
St. Anthony of Padua Parish in Mackinaw City remains open, but brings in “visiting” priests who also serve other communities.
There wouldn’t have been a question about closing Sacred Heart if one had walked into the church on Christmas Eve, where a capacity crowd of more than 220 attended the 8 p.m. Mass.
“We had a big crowd, and there was a big crowd Christmas morning, too, at 9 a.m.,” said the Rev. Leonard Jocys, who has been the sacramental minister at Sacred Heart for the past 12 years. “It was beautiful.”
Jocys, who is officially retired, has stayed on to say daily Mass, hear confessions, and officiate at weddings and funerals at the small country church. Many other Northern Michigan parishes are not as lucky.
Sacred Heart became an “oratory” in October of 1991 by order of Bishop Patrick Cooney, and parishioners were reduced to meeting twice weekly to say the rosary. Under Cooney’s decree, only special occasions such as weddings and funerals allowed for liturgies to be celebrated.
In February 1992, Monsignor David Gemeund stopped the meetings. Socolovitch received a phone call from a neighbor who said that there were people at Sacred Heart accompanied by a sheriff’s deputy. Gemeund feared trouble, and ordered the church locked under police supervision.
“It was the 20th of February, my wedding anniversary,” Socolovitch recalled Friday, “and when I got there they were changing the locks on the doors. I went in and started saying the rosary in Polish, and the deputy told me that if I wouldn’t leave they would get a warrant and arrest me for trespassing.”
The Cheboygan County Sheriff’s Department carried out its duty that day with a certain amount of respect for Socolovitch and his church, driving him to the jail, fingerprinting and booking him, then driving him back home again.
“I told the sheriff to do what he had to do, but I was going to do what I had to do,” Socolovitch said. “I told them this was God’s house and it was going to stay that way. By the time they took me away there were probably 20 other parishioners inside the church. They weren’t going to arrest them all. The sheriff had me brought home because the jail was full and they didn’t have room.”
Socolovitch said that when they passed the church on his way home, he asked to be let out but was told by the deputy he needed to go on home.
“1 told him I knew the way back to church,” he said.
When he returned, approximately 200 people had filled the church for their vigil to keep it open. From that point on, parishioners prayed and occupied the building on a 24-hour basis until the decision was reversed and the church was again opened for full liturgies.
Socolovitch doesn’t have an exact date for his as yet untitled book to be available, but promises “it won’t be too long now, they are about ready for me to take a look at it and read it over.”
Sacred Heart Catholic Church now has more than 225 families registered as members, according to Jocys, who said the Parish Council decided to build on to the church several years ago to increase the seating capacity and make the building accessible to handicapped people and the elderly.
“For the new building addition, we had a loan for $300,000 and were to pay it back over seven years,” Jocys said, “but the parish paid back the loan in two years and burned the mortgage. Today we have over $200,000 in the bank and we don’t have to ask for money.”
Some work on the outside of the church remains, with a few new stained-glass windows still to be installed. The interior of the original portion of the church is next to be refinished, but that project is still in the planning stage.
